


hold my bones, until i stitch myself back together

by jarofactonbell



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, HONESTLY JEONGIN IS PRECIOUS I LOVE HIM, How Do I Tag, M/M, based shamelessly on one single tweet about two rooms, felix dancing is art and you're welcome to join me in that club where we cry over him, how do i space, influx of italics, jeonglix hours, just two boys being pals (not really they gay but you get my drift), soft jeonglix, some elimination tears because it's the time of the year where i feel sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: It goes something like this - they will never be broken apart, no matter how hard the world tries toOr it goes something like this -“Hey Innie.”“Hi.”“I'll always come back to you.”“And I'll stay with you. Always.”





	hold my bones, until i stitch myself back together

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [turn the lights off, get a little braver now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640097) by [strawhatmikans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawhatmikans/pseuds/strawhatmikans). 



> Saw a tweet about Jeongin feeling boneless in Felix's hug which as usual, spiralled into this. Awaiting all feedback from everyone I cram wrote this in 3 days FORGIVE MY SLOW SELF
> 
> Look I had the tweet but I can't find it we'll just have to bear with me for this moment. It's super self-indulgent and it's for all the Felix stans out there (@cindu this is largely for you - @syd you too) 
> 
> References: Jeongin and Felix can play piano, Jeongin is reportedly very clumsy - which I took liberty to expand on the fact that he probably has as much grace and balance as I do (none at all), Chris did help Jeongin count his steps when he first joined the company, all the first impressions of Felix came from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTJW9v1b1rg&t=258s)

_Or Jeongin and Felix: A chronicle of hugs_

 

It goes something like this.

The new trainee - a foreigner, dark skinned, black clothes, aura distinctly _not_ Korean, _not_ Seoul about the way he stiffly bowed - stood before the dance studio. There was something almost _otherworldly_ about him. _Like a prince,_ Jeongin mused, eyes still tracking the still form of the new trainee. Two block haircut with the sides pushed back. Four solid gold rings, a thick golden band of a watch. Gold chains around his neck. _Stupid. Unsightly._

Jeongin remembers. There was trepidation in him - out of many trainees that passed through the doors of the dance studio that morning - why is it _him_ that carved a mark in his budding memory? Was it the rings that carved such a deep impression inside him? Was it the eyes, intense, silent, predatory - the little choked breath when their eyes met - that left him winded?

He found out the name of the trainee. Lee Yong Bok. Felix Lee. Australian. From Sydney. Dancer. Aspiring rapper.

He glowed with so much luminance Jeongin could trace the outline of his stupid haircut with his lids taped shut. _No. Stupid. Bad. Don't go around learning the sound of someone's voice and their gestures where you have dance moves to be proficient at._

At expected, Jeongin fails, spectacularly.

 

(Jeongin laughs through the VLIVE, recounting the _too_ intense first meeting. They all laugh, good-naturedly, through the mockery of Felix Lee and his gold rings and stupid intimidating aura. Felix is plastered on the wooden table, groaning. Hyunjin is hooting _‘A prince, prince!’_ from across the table.

“Am I different now?” He looks up, begging them to take mercy on him.

“You're brighter now,” Woojin reassures him, eyes fiercely gentle.

Jeongin agrees, wholeheartedly.

“He's the member whose first impression I can't forget,” he admits. There needs to be no censoring between the words, no lines to be read between. The truth, unabashed, lies where he presents them.

Felix clutches his shoulder, then his chest. It might have been _thanks for not humiliating me_ or _you took my breath away too._ )

  


It goes something like this.

Felix _(Yongbok, but he hate that name)_ Lee, dances with too much arms.

The teacher didn't find a problem with it - but Jeongin does. There's a rumour somewhere that the foreigner _(Australian, like Chris)_ is a martial artist and apparently his punches _hurt_ but no one had yet taken it upon themselves to test out bored rumours circulating the training agency. _Practice_ is too predictably at the forefront of their minds. _Must get better._ **_Be_ ** _better._ **_Be_ ** _the best._ But just to be sure, Jeongin avoids standing near Felix in case he gets decked across the face or something.

And it's true that there's talent _just dripping_ from the foreigner - potential abundance. He wonders, time and again, if that potential can be harnessed, how much more power and control can the boy be. He saw plenty of dancers with the lethal control and power in their limbs, like dance is in their veins, lying dormant, but always _there_ and all they have to do is tap into it _._ He envies those others, wondering if he could awaken that ability in himself too.

 _Thwack!_ goes one arm. _Thwack!_ goes a shoulder.

Felix Lee does swing and he swings hard. Jeongin swallows curses to the back of his lungs, conserving the foul words he heard his brother throw around whenever their parents weren't home, both giggling at the taboo of cursing.

“Jeongin, focus!” The teacher barks at him. He straightens, brings his shoulders higher.

“Sorry!”

 

It goes something like this: Jeongin's initial reactions to Felix had been him getting hit by the arms and it would do them much better if there is a classroom or a string of people between them. It's not that he thinks they won't become friends, it's that he fears contact with Felix, being seared with solid sunlight.

He doesn't meet Felix's eyes from then on.

 

It also goes something like this. 

Chris seeks him out, takes him to the vendors outside and bribing him with food, at the compromise of being privy to Jeongin's troubles. He's a younger one in comparison to the other boys there and he always plasters a smile on his lips, reassurances of _I'm doing alright!_ to drive kind but nosy older boys away.

The truth is that Jeongin feels less than okay, but he'll sooner have his braces taken off than the day he admits to it.

Because he's a middle child and he's conscious of how much of an attention span exactly that he occupies in his parents’ minds after a long day at work. Because he knows there are risks associated with this line of profession and his own head will be all that he owns if _(no, when)_ he succeeds. Because he doesn't want to weigh others down, not when he himself already feels the weight digging onto his shoulder.

“I'm giving you extra dance lessons,” the boy declares, walking close enough for them to brush arms. Not anything closer, because Chris can read air and tension just as well as a music composition. An announcement, not asking for permission. _Attendance is required._

“Don't I get a say?” He returns, trying for jest.

“Don’t you want to get better?” Is the counter. Side step. Glance. _Checkmate._

Jeongin doesn’t need to answer. It’s not like Chris wants to hear an irrefutable ‘yes’ anyways.

 

Felix is here and Jeongin can taste the onslaught of _fuck too bright_ and _why why is he here he’s not supposed to see me fail what._ He backs away, a foot outside the dance classroom, breath fizzing out of him in a maddening spiral of deteriorating pressure. _Too much_ . _Too little._

“Felix needs lessons in dance basics,” Chris rolls up his sleeves, tucking his hair under his cap. “I'm helping you both.”

Jeongin finds it hard to expunge the words he knows are true from inside his air pipes, that _Felix doesn't need help, he’s good at what he does_ clashes, cymbals and drums, inside his head. That is the truth in which he perceives, but how true is his judgement in the expertise of the dance instructors at JYP?

Felix gives a little wave, a small twirl of his fingers, skin a little paler, eyes a little darker. They make eye contact. There is nothing from Jeongin that gives away that he remembers Felix or Felix him. They're just two strays Chris picked up and took pity on. Nothing more.

Chris doesn't wait for them to get acquainted. Clapping his hands, he snaps orders at them, positions and the counting of movements a part of subconscious muscle memory for him now, a familiar routine to fall back into.

He doesn't glance at Felix. Doesn't catch Felix flicking his eyes _at him_ , a scrunch to his eyebrows, fading away to a blank slate of controlled concentration.

 

Chan works them to the ground, leaves when it's late _(and when the cleaners shout at them to go away so they can clean the sweaty floors you nuisances!)_ and repeats the cycle. Jeongin doesn't get better, see, but he doesn't regress, which counts as much as progress as far as things go. The generosity is welcomed and almost alien to him, the sole Busan younger kid besides Wonpil to venture to Seoul to throw away stability for a chance at fame and closest wish to the soul. His family were wary, but sent him out anyway, occasionally sending gifts and parcels and food, worried but not really, distant but not really.

Jeongin is enrolled into a local middle school, set to enter SOPA in his high school years. He goes to school, goes to the dorms, changes, practices, binge eats in between snatches of breaks, does his homework, practices, falls asleep, wakes up. _Wash, rinse, repeat._

Chris works him to the ground but also sneaks him snacks and gives him detailed feedback on how to control his form, how to train himself to move there faster, move here slower, how to remember the blurry of movements.

Felix follows close by, never a word of complaint. He and Chris converse in soft English, the natural timbre of his voice even lower. Soothing. In his natural tone, he doesn't sear. It gives Jeongin a moment of reprieve, blinded too much by the way Felix moves in _that_ kind of way and stares _just_ too intensely and it gets under his skin. He heard the whispers in the hallway, the clear admiration of many trainees, older and younger alike, of the new blood. He doesn’t speak much - doesn’t know much Korean and doesn’t converse as freely in English as others would expect him to do so. They have enough foreign trainees to grasp the gist that missing the natal place is an awful and gut-wrenching loss in which there are no words of consolation for. There is just this _awful gap_ and no words, empty or not, can bridge that relocation of what ‘home’ is. For the most parts, Felix plays into the imposed role of ‘mysterious, dark and handsome’ that the trainees affixed onto him well _(too well),_ but in actuality there is tangible loneliness that shadows him. While he may shine while he dances _(glaringly so - flying higher than the sun itself),_ Felix collapses, star into core, a swallowing black hole, obliterating the outlines of a boy displaced from the soils he was birthed from. For him, there is no ‘home’. For him, this is perhaps closer to ‘hell’ than anything.

 

_“Three, four, five - Innie, focus!”_

_“Lix, watch your ankle, you’ll twist it!”_

“Hello, master Yang, no slacking. Get back to position, the eval is soon,” Chris snaps, an edge in his normally gentle words.

“Can I not catch my own breath?” He gasps back.

“If you get this right you can lie on the floor and be miserable like the rest of us!”

He curses under his breath. _“I hate this.”_

“Come on, Jeongin!”

Chris stays true to his words (after thoroughly working him to the ground) and slips out to write more beats or push himself beyond the sleep limits of a growing teenage boy. Weariness follows that man in ugly dregs. He drinks so many energy cans and coffee cups that Jeongin fears he’ll go up in flames with the amount of caffeinated fuel he’s consuming and consequently burning up in his rigorous dance practices.

Felix is still there, snapping his limbs at exact angles. Jeongin slumps on the ground, breathing hard. He can’t seem to stop staring - it’s moving water in the limbs of land-dwellers. The lights are dimming, blurring, but the shape of Felix’s movements cut through his corneas in distinct lines. Drips of dip-dyed paints, streaking across blank canvases, painting a tale. A sole squeaks and the little gasp, the chase of breath that eludes them all _(can’t breathe in enough can’t breathe in faster),_ stark reminder that Felix and him, they share the same air too, has Jeongin startling awake.

His eyes trace the flickering light that Felix gives off. Gives him no sounds - anything to give away his intrusion into what is a private practice session. He should have left with Chris earlier. He shouldn’t be here.

Felix sees him anyway. Makes eye contact with him in the mirror. Eyelashes drag open and close. Dark eyes. Heaving chest. Too big clothes.

“Hi,” Jeongin swallows down a gasped breath. “Should I leave?”

A shake of the head, bangs pinned away from his forehead with black familiar bobby pins. He looks at himself in the mirror, then meets Felix’s eyes, containing the urge to flinch within the set of his shoulders. He must not. Felix looks moments away from fracturing into a million pieces if a draft blows through the studio and Jeongin’s head spins with the inexplicable _urge_ to just...hold him?

Felix forks fingers through his sweaty hair, sways a little on his feet and turns to stare straight at him.

“Do you want a hug?” He blurts out, not unthinking _(but rather from constant suppression of thoughts)_  exhaustion stripping away all inhibitions and warnings inside his head about being burned alive by the flames Felix exudes.

The foreigner stares at him, silently considering whether he is joking or not _(he isn't_ _, he very much isn't)._ Something must've steeled in his gaze because Felix slumps, shoulders sagging, a little nod, chin clipping downwards and begins Jeongin's pilgrimage across the sweaty studio floor to Felix and his dying light.

He doesn't know how to hug properly, all hugs before were chokeholds that his family engage in with him. It's a kind of affection that is rough and _familiar._ He stops before the other boy, hesitating, waiting for that soft rumble of _no_ to come, but nothing does. Nothing stands before Jeongin and his overwhelming _want_ to hold Felix.

Jeongin hugs him, a bit _too_ awkwardly, but he's trying, and Felix sags against him, _falling onto him,_ too much kid in growing up young adult to pursue this pipe dream of his and Jeongin gets the exhaustion, down to the toenails inside his shoes, but they gotta keep pushing, gotta work harder, fill their bones and blood with songs and beats and rhythm. The truth, the only truth, the _ugly_ truth - they gotta be on top, is a thing that breaks and spurs them on.

 

 

It goes something like this- he holds Felix in a dance studio at 10 o’clock on a Thursday night with the autumn sky bruising purple outside. And when asked about this, he only mentions Chris and his gruelling supervision, snapping orders, determination to _better_ Jeongin. It's dodging many bullets in one answer - thanking Chris and protecting this little moment to himself. No one will know about Felix falling further into a fit of doubt and no one will know how his hair had grown longer because he had no family to criticise his looks or how resigned his bones were collapsing against Jeongin. No one would know and Jeongin would never tell. Never let anyone else be privy to this little thing between them.

Then it goes something like this - they become closer. Stares become longer. Distances shorten. Felix doesn't hit Jeongin by accident and in return he doesn't step onto Felix's space. It's odd camaraderie, but he'll take it. Anything to take away the hellish torment Felix carries in his eyes.

Meanwhile, his dance improves, _just_ a bit, with the addition of Hwang Hyunjin to the ragtag group that Chris pulls together, now running on four. Hyunjin, pretty boy extraordinaire, who everyone is sure can do everything if there is sufficient time for the guy to go through the basics. There's an undercurrent of derision when other trainees talk about Hyunjin. _Just a pretty face. Nothing to him, he's just lucky he's born with a good face._ It's cruel to whisper such things, but it is a reality of this world. There should be a banner or something in the Korean entertainment industry. _To succeed, thou must first be pretty._

But Hyunjin takes it all in good stride. There's an understanding between them and they admire each other, finding the siblings that they want in each other and Hyunjin would grip him _tight tight tight_ before leaving home. _You're the brother I've always wanted._

It's odd. Having someone who admires what you do and someone who you can admire without it spiralling into odd jealousy stints. Hyunjin had been more than serious when he followed Jeongin around, begging him to sing _anything, kid, that was a great song!_ It's enough to corrode mountains, Hyunjin's enthusiasm and chipper personality. He caves in, sitting against the mirrors after another gruelling practice, gulping for air.

He was accepted into the company for singing trot. There is no showing how good he is if he doesn't sing trot.

So he sings. It's an old tune, but grandmother loved to play this song on the stereo every Saturday morning without preamble and its melodies are imprinted within the sounds of his childhood memories.

Hyunjin cheers him on. Felix is silent, but he hears the heat of his gaze. Words and gesticulations of the lyrics imbue him with a childishness he doesn't think possible for the old soul he had to become - but it seems that his bones are still young after all, all the years he have yet to live stringent coursing through his blood still.

 _“That was so good!”_ Hyunjin whoops, excitement in his bones. On Jeongin’s face, a smile blossoms so wide he dares to believe it can rival the sun incarnate sitting in the room.

Felix approaches him after Hyunjin finished gushing and throwing arms around and all over Jeongin, hugging and reassuring him that he's _more than good._ Jeongin almost didn't want to let Hyunjin go - he's warm, _too_ warm, fondness just oozing from him. They promised each other a definitive _tomorrow, yep, tomorrow._

He tips his head back, meeting Felix's eyes.

“...Hi.”

There's the tiny shift. Felix moves as if he fears someone will catch him having mobility, economising his movements. There is a sense of borrowed space, that he's trespassing on the facilities he has access to.

There goes Jeongin's heart. Splintering in threes.

 _“Hi hyung,”_ he smiles, a curve of his lips.

Felix’s eyes are blown wide, two shuffling steps back.

Jeongin had returned his greetings with English. Accented, yes, perhaps bad, but he wants none of the splendour Felix the Foreign Trainee exudes. He wants to hear the little boy, the scared one, the boneless mass who clung onto another boy in the dimming lights of the dance studio in the middle of Seoul, breathing hard, missing home like it's a physical pain inside his bones.

Felix shakes himself out of his trance, breath grounding. “I was just...wonder- wonderin-”

“You can talk in English,” he tells Felix, breath sleepy soft.

_“Can you look at my dance for evaluation?”_

If anyone asks Jeongin what happens after, it would be another secret Jeongin hoards for himself. With a calm and measured tone, he would informer the curious mind that he said yes, watched Felix danced and gave his feedback. Another momentous bonding. A turning point. It's not a lie, but it's not the whole truth either. 

Indeed, those things do happen. But the exact details, his gulped acceptance that needs no second thoughts, the little shy smile undulating on the dip of Felix’s mouth, the flicker of something mischievous in the heated stare Felix bestows into him before the music starts - those details Jeongin hoards, his secret stash of gold, to himself. And he is honest in admitting to the darkening sky that there is nothing more beautiful than a stripped down Felix Lee dancing for a chance to reach his dreams among the stars.

 

It goes something like this - Felix and Jeongin grow closer, or something like that. It must've been the air _(or something),_ and Jeongin claps in wild abandon as soon as the music ceases.

 _“That was so good!”_ He gasps, dialect slipping through, grin full of braces.

“Was it?” Felix smiles back, eyes alight. They must've looked like cats after a banquet of good food, content, eyes drooping open and close.

Jeongin doesn't repeat himself. Nods. The rigid lines on Felix's shoulders unravel themselves.

They bump shoulders at the door, steps out of sync, air charges between them and Jeongin is not doing anything about it, lets the warmth builds up momentum by itself rather than chase it.

“Night, hyung,” he bides.

Felix is a single sliver of sunlight in moonless night, hair sweaty, a mess, boneless with the wind blowing this way and that.

_“Until tomorrow, bright star.”_

 

It goes something like this  - Chris has a plan of putting together a group of boys to form a group. When asked why, he gave some bullshit excuse like _to make the next cash cows for JYP_ but Jeongin knows Chris better. Can read him deeper. Hears _you’re my chance at debuting and I yours._ Hears _I want us all to become a family._

Jeongin can’t say no to that, now can he?

It explains why his rap buddies, Han Jisung and Seo Changbin, had begun to...tag along with the ragtag crew of Hyunjin, Felix and him. Jisung is loud and enthusiastic and _honestly excellent at anything he wants to do._ Changbin is ludic, mischief in a perpetually annoyed face, but heavens alive, _can he rap._ Jeongin almost dislodges his jaw from the sheer intensity of his words and the way he strings sentences together _just lay me down, guys, I'm ready to embrace death, that was a one-in-a-lifetime experience I'm ready to_ **_go._ **

Obviously Changbin takes it all in stride and gushes when Jeongin sings too. It must be his voice or something in the Busan water, but all the stress and tension peter out of the guys like water drained out of the sink and it's a bloody _miracle_ because these stubborn senior citizens cannot relax for one second to breathe and he had undertaken the role of entertainer next to Jisung and Hyunjin. Make them laugh and take their minds off things because one more stressor could be the tipping point and all the stone stacking efforts would have been wasted and the mountains themselves would crumble.

They mess around near the big piano facing the coffee shop and where there are all these bean bags and chairs. Chris plays a song or two and succeeds in baiting Kim Woojin, _the_ vocal god out from his lesson to entertain them with a ballad. _Rainy day_. The rain starts outside the windows, pitter patter against the windowsill. Changbin teases Woojin about how he's a weather controller at the sound of his singing and everyone hoots after the blonde's retreat, embarrassed but pleased at the praise.

“Someone else play, I'm bored,” Chris stands from the piano. Jisung ventures a choppy version of Chopsticks that is an effort in learning, not of skill, _yet._ Hyunjin shoves him off the stool and asks Felix to sit on it. Apparently he can play piano.

“Oh me too,” he finds himself saying and himself squished, pressed flush against Felix, a burning furnace next to Jeongin's perpetual cold bones.

There's a smile tossed his way and he beams back, automatic.

He hears a soft _Mum they're so cute_ and dismisses it, fingers hovering over the keys. He hasn't played in _months,_ but the feel of the keys is still calming.

Felix gestures generally to the instrument, lip under his teeth, finding the words probably for the words.

“Fur elise?” He asks. Felix relaxes, nods. They settle, make room for each other, he's on the left, Felix on the right.

 _“A personal favourite,”_ a smile on the dip of lips.

Position. Left, right, centre. Colours. Black, white, gold.

“You can talk, hyung. In English or Korean, it's fine. I can understand you,” he nudges the infallible arm. “I can't speak English well enough but-”

 _"You're fine, Innie,”_ comes the chuckle. Felix nudges him back, fingers shy from grazing his.

The noise Jeongin makes clashes with his sliding elbow on the treble keys. Cacophony isn't far from what he yelps out.

“Try to breathe, Jeonginnie,” Changbin ribs. He hisses out a retaliation, baring his braces.

Felix only laughs, tossing his head back.

 

 _“Can you sing Sam Smith songs?”_ The question is soft, breathed out and gone if Jeongin doesn't pay attention _(but when does he ever not take his mind off Felix?)._

“Lay me down?” He lets out an ‘eep' sound. That was not an answer, just a question in response to a previous question. “Stay with me?”

“Stay with me,” Felix murmurs. _“It's a favourite of mine,”_ he continues in English.

“I don't know the words. Uh, wait, hold on, got me phone,” he fumbles with his pocket, all while Felix watches him, a bemused quirk on his top lip. “Don't laugh at me.”

Felix’s frame vibrates on the cramped stool, teeth on bottom lip. He doesn't dignify Jeongin with a response.

“Can you play the chords? Melodies? I don't- can't multitask,” he's scanning the English, mouth moving to form the sounds, unfamiliar to his mother tongue. “This is hard. How do you do this for Korean?”

 _“Lots of crying,”_ a grin that doesn't reach his eyes. _“But it's_ _necessary.”_

Jeongin wants to wrap him in a hug. But they are surrounded by eyes so he hopes his gaze can comfort this lonely sun.

“Okay, Stay with me, alright, okay, got it,” he clears his throat, settles a little into Felix's side. 

_Oh won't you, stay with me_

_Coz you're, all I need_

_They say love is true to see._

_Darling, stay with me_

Felix joins in, soft timbre, easy airs, natal tongue rolling off in waves of honeyed breaths. Jeongin picks up the chords, pressing the keys in accompaniment with Felix singing.

“Close your mouth, aish, this boy,” Hyunjin chirps next to his right. Jeongin slams down the final chord a bit too harshly, startled, completely oblivious to his audience.

 _“Having fun?”_ Felix nudges him, a grin slicing up one side of his face.

 _“Shut up,”_ he nudges back, almost booting Felix off the stool. The dark haired boy stumbles and keens sideways anyway, half on the floor.

“Ha! Karma!” Jisung cackles, slapping his thighs, big guffaws, too seal-esque for anyone to sound like, erupting out of him. “Serves you right, Lix.”

“Shut up,” Felix glares at him. To Jeongin. _“That was great. Let’s do it again.”_

 _“Stay with me?”_ Jeongin offers a hand.

 _“Well,”_ Felix grins back. _“You are all I need.”_

Anyone who gush about how red Jeongin’s ears are when he processed those words are all liars and should not be trusted.

 

It goes something like this. 

Jeongin has less balance and mobility than a newborn infant. He can walk, _sure,_ but he’s awful at it, tripping on thin air. He dances, slaves at it, but he can’t seem to _just walk in a straight line._

He misses the last step on the stairs and careening, face-first, at the steps. Understandably, he’s flailing, hoping to delay the inevitable. Hoping that if he can’t see it, it’s not there and he won’t get hurt.

He doesn’t. The collar under his throat fastens to around his throat. He flaps his arms about frantically, kicking and pushing himself up.

 _“Careful,”_ something like subdued sunlight murmurs to him.

“Shit-”

“Language, Jeongin.”

“Felix!” He twists, turning around to throw his arms around Felix’s neck. “My hero!”

 _“Hello,”_ there is an edge of a smile in his voice. Jeongin can call to mind the smile on the dip of his lips. He’s delirious from the blinding gaze of the sun, held under his grip.

They sway a little, cramped against the stairs leading to the practice studios.

“Hi, hyung,” he smiles. They don’t fracture apart.

 

After that, it just becomes A Thing. The Things keep on stacking - late night dance practices, piano improvisations, arm nudges, meeting eyes in the mirror, singing for each other - until he realises there are bridges upon bridges of Things from him to Felix, tangible. He can touch all these moments, fixated and wavering in time and hold onto them. He can hold Felix in his own mind, because that memory belongs only to Jeongin.

He doesn’t try to trip on purpose, see, but he stops paying attention to his surrounding. Not because he’s grown more reckless, but there is a shadow close to him, always watching his six. He probably referenced some pop culture thing or agreed to some sort of unspoken agreement, because Felix pulls him from his falls with a hand around his waist, Jeongin’s back snug against his chest and he goes boneless in the sure way the older boy grips him.

 _“Sometimes I think you like getting pummelled by the ground,”_ Felix mutters into the back of his head. They’re the same height now, but Jeongin is shooting up fast. He’ll be taller soon. _“Thought you were smaller.”_

“I’m getting taller, don’t overlook my progress, hyung,” he struggles against Felix who barks out a laugh, tightening the arm around his middle. “I had it under control.”

_“I’m sure you did, mate. Come on, walk. We need to go.”_

  


After that, it goes something like this - Felix holds him closer when Jeongin reaches for him. It almost hurts, the way Felix grips his hand. In return, Jeongin claws at his shoulder blades, desperate. The show is filming _(they passed the girls, but there is no sense of victory in him when Ryujin grounded back tears with the heel of her hands)_ and they’re teetering on the cliffside, a breath away from careening into the abyss.

Friable, they are. Easy to snap. To break. Any moment now, this almost Thing could be taken away from them. There are cameras everywhere and no privacy - eyes track their movements - they are free but not so free. The compulsion, the itch to _stay stay stay_ crawls all over his skin as he splits his mouth in half to beam at the recording cameras. _Please. Let it be enough._

It’s not **_enough._**

He realises that he is still a child. Of course it’s not enough. Nothing ever is. Dreams cost too. _Too much. It is costing him too much and everything and he can’t breathe -_

“Ah,” Felix sobs, eyes puffy, carrying all that weight since the day he boarded a plane to South Korea. “No, no, don't cry.”

“It's not fair!” He bawls, hiccuping, back of his hand attached onto his eyes, suppressing the onslaught of tears. “It's not fair.”

“No, _no,”_ Felix gathers him inside his arms, shaking. He's no Changbin - there is no known tie between them that exists in front of an international audience _(good, keep it that way)._ There is no need for the cameras to point their way.

The other boys had cried their dues. Chris more than anyone. Chris who shoulders everything onto himself, thinks Minho's elimination is _his his his burden to bear_ and Felix as _his his his failure to guide._

There may have been a quiet _Shut the fuck up Christopher and just give me a goddamn hug I know you won't leave me behind. I know, mate._

 _God it's so bloody unfair._ He can't scream, not when the producers are lingering about, discussing shock factor for the next couple of episodes. He's numb, too numb now, can't even feel Felix's hugs or his solar heat, the two of them clutching skin but only gathering clothes.

 _“No, no, bright one, rest easy,”_ Felix whispers into his hair, just a smidge shorter than Jeongin then. But he's leaving and how will anyone cope, least of all Jeongin? Plants wither without their sun and Felix had long since claimed that role in his life. It's cruel, this industry is too cruel. He's crying because Felix can't cry for himself, tears long passed goodbye, as if he has a seed of doubt he would be asked to leave this makeshift family next.

_“I'll come back to you. Always. We're all strays, we'll come back to each other. I'll make it happen.”_

And Jeongin thinks Felix is a little bit too hopeful and delusional to promise with faithless words and actions that cannot be fulfilled.

  


And it comes to this.

Felix comes back. He always does.

“Oh my _god,_ ” Jeongin doesn't have an inhibitor, not around Felix, not when Felix actively tries to dismantle this so called filter. It's all a blur what happens after a familiar set of eyes and freckles tilt their ways in his orbit and he goes spiralling into Felix's embrace. The bones that broke and the bridges that collapsed when they separated begin to mend, until they come back altogether, enough to support Jeongin's frantic feet and Felix's insistent ones crossing those bridges to revive their Things.

He refuses to let Felix go after that reunion episode finished airing. They get visibly upset when they can't see Minho, always going anywhere in groups of threes and more. Minho loves being doted on and welcomes the attention, kissing their hairlines fondly and teasingly, as if everything is a game. Jeongin doesn't apologise for almost crushing his wrist once when they wake in their dorms, frightful when Minho doesn't answer his questions.

As for Felix, he shies away from affection when his stage persona is not called for, keeping to himself, reserved, too quiet. Chris coaxes hugs from him now and then, but the brunette jumps when Woojim bumps into him or Seungmin nudges his arm. The boys were getting worried, but not enough to flag any alarms, not when he still hugs Jeongin just as fierce as before, perhaps more. It's reciprocated in all levels of intensity and Felix may have changed since being asked to leave, but this remains the same. This Thing between them.

There is a rumour that cicirculates around when the show ends. It encompasses Felix and Jeongin hugging in the corridor and they were late for the screening of the VLIVE at which the production staff came to fetch them and prise them apart. But Felix had bared teeth and nails, growled in clear Korean that he would _break fingers if they try to put a hand on us._

It's just a rumour. If any production staff is skittish around Felix, well, he did glare at them all for their scolding Seungmin and Changbin for no reasons before a live show.

 

And perhaps, it had always been this. 

Two Room airs and they're paired together. This has never changed. Somewhere along the way, they've become _Felix and Jeongin,_ the natural progression of Things. They mended those bridges, they cemented paths. Everything is as right as it will be.

Jeongin didn't hear the question but he doesn't care. Felix is talking freely in Korean and he listens, notes the memorable timbre that sears but no longer burns. They're on the subject of hugs now and they got here, they're successful, they qre finally living the dream - eyes are always on their front, back and everywhere else.

They still sneak in a look that speaks it all anyway.

Jeongin relays the feeling of bonelessness in Felix's grip. He doesn't say _he holds me like I'm made of glass and a thousand titanium pieces reinforced into steel spine and I find myself dangling over the precipice of how quietly intense Felix loves_. Felix smiles, a droop of his eyelids, socked feet digging into his.

 

 

It had always been like this. They hold each other tight until there's no space left and it's been a long ride but there's road ahead still so if he falls, so be it. There needs to be no censoring between the words, no lines to be read between. The truth, unabashed, lies where the words are. 

“Hey Innie.”

“Hi.”

“I'll always come back to you.”

“And I'll stay with you. Always.” 

**Author's Note:**

> As always - find the Marvel references, quote your favourite bits, scream at me via any medium - I accept pigeon mail too, honest to heck pray for my English scores to stay high enough and I don't die next week and the week after, GET HYPED FOR THE BOYS FOR WHATEVER THEY DO I'M OUT OF THE LOOP BUT I SUPPORT THEM
> 
> find me on[twitter](https://twitter.com/jarofactonbell), [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny) and consider [giving a few tokens to a poor one](https://ko-fi.com/jarofactonbell)


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